


Sterile Dirt Battlefield

by astramaxima (shotgunsinlace)



Series: To Be Infinite [1]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Angst, Competent Agent Stone, Falling out, M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23377861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shotgunsinlace/pseuds/astramaxima
Summary: Stone knows the risk, he's run the numbers: if Robotnik attempts to fly the prototype as is he won't make it out alive. Unfortunate for both, that's a consequence Stone is unwilling to be a part of.— alternatively: my take on why Stone wasn't in the last bit of the movie.
Relationships: Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone
Series: To Be Infinite [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674985
Comments: 15
Kudos: 91





	Sterile Dirt Battlefield

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the "To Be Infinite" series I'm working on but it can definitely be read as a standalone! This sort of works as a prologue to the ten (eleven?) chapter monstrosity that's a third of the way completed, so there's also that.

“I’m your assistant, not your servant,” Stone says, even and measured as he holds his hands at his back, standing at attention. “The boundary is perfectly clear, Doctor.” There is very real anger simmering just beneath Stone’s skin and he releases it as best as he possibly can: by stating clear facts that cannot be disputed by a man with five doctorates.

Robotnik, for the first time since Stone has met him, looks genuinely dumbstruck at the proclamation. “You want to run that by me again, Agent Stone?”

“Not really, no.”

“Then consider your contract terminated, you reprehensible excuse for a—” he pauses, looking Stone over through squinted eyes. “You’re upset. At me. Curious, given the nature of our dynamic. Perhaps my attempts at belittling you have been lacking.”

Stone doesn’t answer and instead stares at the screen above the doctor’s workbench. The schematics for his flyer prototype are on display, running energy efficiency diagnostics off the quill hooked up to it. He makes certain to keep his face schooled into its usually placid look.

Mustache twitching in irritation, Robotnik closes the distance between them, towering over him with every intention to intimidate. Naturally, the agent doesn’t flinch. “I was willing to let the lack of coffee slide this morning considering there’s only so much computational power in that brain of yours, but talking back while on your two feet and not while groveling on your knees?” He tsks. “ _Unacceptable_.”

“If there is anything concerning this operation you need my help with, Doctor, I’m more than willing to lend what little expertise I can offer,” Stone says, still staring at the blueprint out of fear he’ll crack under the pressure making itself at home in his chest. “Otherwise, I’ll be of more use out on the field.”

Lips pressed into a thin line and eyes unnaturally wide, Robotnik cocks his eyebrows. “ _Oh,_ our widdle agent thinks he’s all grown up and ready to take on a big bad job.” He abruptly straightens up and walks away from Stone, arms moving about in a mixture of exasperated dance and needing to suppress the urge to break something in his multi-billion-dollar laboratory. “ _I’ll be of more use out in the field_ —ha. Ha. HA.” Robotnik whips around, hands balled into tight fists at his sides. “Tell me, Agent, what’s your fool-proof plan to capture that _insufferable_ blue miscreant and his Howdy Doody sidekick? Are your measly human constraints enough to grant you the power necessary to win? Because the answer to those hypothetical questions are—obviously—none and no.”

“We have our methods.”

“You have—” Robotnik laughs, and the maniacal sound echoes in the spaces between his robots still mounted on the walls. He stops, like flipping off a switch, and points to the door. “Out.”

“Doctor—”

“Get _OUT_ , Stone. Next time I won’t be so forgiving about it.”

“I ran the numbers,” Stone says, finally fixing his eyes on Robotnik. He clenches his jaw, coming to terms with the fact that his little game of emotional manipulation won’t work. Ironically, the doctor is a little too dense to properly process emotionally driven tactics and responses. “Sixty seconds at a sustained ten Gs,” Stone continues, “is the recorded limit of a human’s capacity before BP levels and lack of oxygen to the brain becomes lethal.” He gestures at the sleek flyer suspended amidst a myriad of sensors. “No fancy flight suit can keep you alive.”

Robotnik’s face contorts into a look of sheer stupefaction. “Agent Stone, it sounds to me like you’re… _doubting_ me. Doubting my creations, my ability to bend the laws of physics themselves, insinuating that I don’t have the capability to solve a problem I have been aware of from the start—insinuating that these deplorable ‘human limits’ are some sort of challenge?!”

“Less a challenge and more a liability.” Stone casts his eyes down, ducking his chin in hopes that Robotnik – for once in his life – listens to him. “You’re not a machine, Doctor. Our bodies are not designed to withstand that kind of pressure.”

“If not me, then who else will pave the road to evolution? Who else will take the leap from scavenging simians to perfection?”

“At the cost of your life?”

“NO CONTEST, STONE,” Robotnik shouts, baring his bottom teeth. “Out of the two of us, who is being driven by _feelings_ and _emotions_? It’s people like you who prevent this sorry state of existence from becoming anything more.”

“As if you’re not acting out of a need to prove something,” Stone shoots right back, a tinge of anger finally coloring his tone. “You don’t exist inside of a simulation, surrounded by drones. You live in the same goddamn world I do and unlucky for you I’m standing right in front of you, telling you that no amount of reverse engineering is going to be enough to keep you from getting yourself killed.” He sucks in a breath through his nose, daring to not look away from Robotnik.

The doctor paces the narrow space between the control screens, wringing his hands as he mutters something Stone doesn’t catch. He eventually comes to a stop with his back towards the agent, looking up at his schematic as his hand clasps his opposite wrist at his back. For a moment, the sound vibration of power pumping through circuitry and the hum of nuclear generators are the only thing that permeates the otherwise still air of the laboratory. 

“I’m never wrong,” Robotnik says, casting Stone a side-glance to freeze the world over. “And it would seem, just this once, that I have made a mistake.” He turns to Stone again, expression unreadable. “I take great pleasure in informing you that this is entirely your fault, Agent; and while it may not go on your spiffy little resume, you can go ahead and carry that colossal nugget of knowledge in that puny brain of yours that, because of you, _I_ fucked up.”

The slow and measured way he speaks the words land sharper than a gunshot, and Stone remains unmoving throughout. “Doctor.”

“You’re hereby, officially, relieved from your post.”

Swallowing suddenly hurts, the ball of saliva in his throat burning its way down as he stares at Robotnik with his usual order of subdued compliance. His feet refuse to move, however. “I—”

“You have ten seconds to _get out of my face_ or I will have you escorted to the same gulag that is so impatiently waiting for your return, Agent. I hear your smotritel' still dreams of you.”

“Doctor, please—”

“Ten.”

“Listen to me!”

“Nine.”

“For the love of… _Robotnik—_ ”

“Eight! Come on now, Agent Stone! I hope your Russian is as fresh as it used to be.”

It is, Stone wants to say, because he wants to remind the doctor of his competency. He wants to remind him that degrees don’t stack exponentially and while Robotnik may be a genius, he can be narrow sighted when overtaken by any fleeting obsession. Stone refuses to accept Robotnik’s sudden giddiness to sacrifice himself for any sort of experiment. Maim himself beyond repair— _maybe_ , but his narcissism is too powerful a motivator to keep him from doing just that. He’s being an idiot, and it takes a herculean effort to keep Stone from saying it aloud.

“SEVEN.”

“Fine.” Stone holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine. You win.”

“I always do, Stone. In the end, I always do.”

The door clicks and whirs open, sunlight suddenly inundating the spot Stone stands on. The bottom step stops an inch above brown shrubbery, a cloud of red dirt kicking up and dispersing until it settles again.

Stone takes a moment to commit the doctor’s face to memory—as twisted into a sneer as it is— accepting that this may be the last time he will ever see him. 

He exits the lab, uncaring but aware that he’s about to be left in the middle of a Nevada desert with nothing but the clothes on his back, miles away from the nearest hub of civilization.

It’s with a sickening twist in his stomach that he listens to the door close behind him, the near silent engines of the armored trailer humming to life and continuing its unbothered path down the desolate highway, California bound.

The sun is blinding, making invisible waves of heat engulf the mobile lab as it becomes a minuscule black dot in the distance, disappearing over a dusty dip in the road.

Stone stands in the middle of the highway, eerily calm.

He’s faced worse. He’s lost everything before. He’s been left standing in more punishing places.

Let the mad doctor destroy himself before he’s given the chance to destroy the world. Stone hasn’t cared for it in a very long time.

 _What is about me that makes you tick?_ Robotnik once asked him, and here Stone stands, still lacking an answer. Whatever it is, it’s powerful enough to override every ounce of self-perseverance, to crumble every wall, and leave him wide open. Twenty minutes ago, he would have given his life for the doctor. Now he has nothing left to give.

Removing his jacket and tie, Stone begins the long trek back home. 

Wherever that may be now.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on twitter @ **[astramaxima](https://twitter.com/astramaxima)!**


End file.
